Boris Johnson maintains lead over Ken Livingstone in polls

Conservative candidate has 53% to 47% lead over Labour rival in latest YouGov poll ahead of London mayoral election

London mayor, Boris Johnson (right), attending a meeting with Conservative leader, David Cameron, is leading Ken Livingstone in the latest poll ahead of the mayoral election. Photograph: Olivia Harris/AFP/Getty Images

Boris Johnson still has a six percentage point lead over Ken Livingstone in the race to become London's next mayor, the latest opinion poll shows.

This is despite more than a third (37%) of those polled saying they see the Conservative candidate as more keen to help the rich than other groups.

With just 17 days to go until the election, the YouGov poll [pdf] makes grim reading for Livingstone.

The former Labour mayor has highlighted a number of manifesto pledges to help people with the cost of living, including a fares cut, a restoration of the educational maintenance allowance for students and a pan-London energy co-op run from City Hall to bring down energy bills.

But the poll, conducted over the weekend, suggests Livingstone's efforts to help "ordinary Londoners" have failed to reverse the pollstrend, with the incumbent Conservative mayor enjoying a 53% to 47% lead after the other candidates are stripped out, down two percentage points on the last YouGov poll conducted in March, before the coalition budget was unveiled.

Johnson's six-point lead is in line with a ComRes poll published last week, despite findings which show that more than a third of those polled think Johnson is most interested in helping the rich.

Almost half (48%) of those surveyed think Johnson is interested in helping some groups more than others, of which 78% say he is particularly keen to help the capital's wealthy ahead of other groups, including commuters (14%) and the poor (4%). Just 35% say Johnson wants to help all Londoners, but this is higher than those who think the same of Livingstone (31%). More than half (53%), believe Livingstone is keen to help some groups more than others, of which 41% believe he is most keen to help Muslims in the capital, followed by 40% who believe he will look after the interests of black and Asian Londoners, and the same number thinking he will put the interests of the poor first.

On first preference votes conducted under the supplementary vote system, Livingstone was predicted to net 40% and Johnson 45%, putting the Labour candidate six percentage points behind Labour and Johnson 10 points ahead of the Conservatives.

The survey suggests Labour will fare better in the London assembly elections, which are more in line with the party's share of support in the capital (50%), with 46% of voters saying they intend to vote Labour and 35% saying they will vote Conservative in the London elections.

Labour, which has eight assembly seats, looks set to win four more, while the Conservatives are set to lose one of their 11 seats in the elections conducted under a quasi-PR arrangement.

Peter Kellner, the president of YouGov, said: "The lesson is clear – the Conservatives have the right candidate to maximise their chances of retaining the mayoralty, while Labour has a candidate who has so far been unable to make the right impact in a city where the party generally does substantially better than in the rest of England. Unless this changes in the next two weeks, Labour London will once again elect a Tory mayor."

Far more of those polled (37%) thought Livingstone was in touch with the concerns of ordinary Londoners, than Johnson (14%). Livingstone also fared better (34%) as the candidate most prepared to "stick to what he believes in", compared with Johnson (30%).

The Labour mayoral candidate was also seen as the one who would make Londoners financially "better off" (22%) – three percentage points ahead of Johnson. Yet almost half of those polled (45%) said they did not believe Livingstone would deliver on his flagship promise to cut fares by 7% later this year if elected.

However, the majority (56%) said any extra transport funding should be spent on cutting fares while just (34%) agreed with Johnson's policy of spending it on improving the London transport network.

Johnson led as the candidate seen as the most honest and trustworthy (25%) compared with Livingstone (19%), who has experienced a difficult few weeks over allegations of hypocrisy over his tax arrangements in light of previous comments levelled at those engaged in tax avoidance.

The Labour mayoral candidate channelled his media earnings through a private company, Silveta Ltd, which allowed him to benefit from corporation tax charged at a lower rate than income tax. The issue has refused to go away despite Livingstone insisting he used the company to pay three other people, including his wife, Emma Beal.

The poll showed the Liberal Democrat candidate, Brian Paddick, would get 7% in first preference votes, with Ukip's Lawrence Webb receiving 3%. Jenny Jones, the Green party candidate, was pushed into joint fifth place for the first time on just 2%, alongside independent candidate Siobhan Benita.